When women started accusing Donald Trump of sexual improprieties, his supporters questioned why they didn’t speak out earlier. This seems like a dumb question, given Trump’s furious threats to sue the women who talk about their experiences and news organizations reporting their accounts.

But that’s not the only reason, as female journalists and other professionals can attest. Trump and his defenders were irate that People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff wrote about his having assaulted her after omitting the alleged attack from the Trump story she did about him in 2005. And yet the truth is that such experiences have long been routine—but they’ve rarely made it into the public record.

When I was a young reporter, unwanted sexual advances—including outright assaults—went with the territory. One assignment was a profile of Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy, who was then in his 70’s. Every time I asked a question, he responded with a prurient one: “How old were you when you had your first sexual experience?”

I deflected his lewd remarks until he finally exclaimed, “I can’t stand it any more!” Lunging toward me, he shoved his hand down the front of my dress and grabbed my breast. Without thinking, I reflexively pushed him away—and was horrified when he fell back against the wall behind him and crumpled to the floor.

At that precise moment Ormandy’s wife walked into his office. “I’ve brought you your galoshes,” she said cheerily, ignoring the fact that her husband was sprawled on the floor. I made a hasty exit.

It didn’t even occur to me to write about what happened; such an account would never have made it into the newspaper where I worked. I did report it, to nothing but laughs. I wasn’t surprised. On my third day at that newspaper, I got into the elevator, followed by a man I hadn’t met. When the elevator door closed, he pushed me up against the wall and grabbed my breasts with both hands, shoving his tongue in my mouth so hard I gagged. I didn’t have the faintest idea who he was and only later discovered he was a high-ranking editor.

I had similar experiences with other bosses, co-workers and more interview subjects than I could count—including one author who unzipped his pants while I was interviewing him, took out his penis and asked me to give him a blow job. Speechless, I shook my head. “A hand job?” he asked. Struggling not to burst into tears, I said no. Looking annoyed, he started masturbating. “Can you just watch?” he said hopefully. I ran out of the room, feeling as if I was about to vomit. Though I dutifully filed my story, I never wrote about his behavior.

Then there was the famous actor who got up and took off his pants while I was interviewing him. I pretended this wasn’t happening, and eventually he put on another pair of pants, as if he had just wanted to change his clothes. Another entertainer who demanded that I interview him in his hotel room stood up during our conversation and took off all his clothes except for his boxer shorts. He got into bed, pulled the sheet up and gazed expectantly at me. Once again, I ignored what was happening and proceeded with my questions about his professional career.

Many years later, it’s hard for me to understand why I didn’t fight back. In those days, most of us simply didn’t. Journalism was a hardboiled boys’ club, and it was very difficult for women to get hired in the first place; one of the biggest challenges was proving you were tough enough to take whatever the guys dished out, and they dished out plenty.

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And an interviewer’s main goal is to draw out her subjects, which means she’s trying not to alienate them. If a reporter immediately denounced every subject who offended her, she wouldn’t get many stories—a dynamic that undoubtedly factored into Stoynoff’s experience. She had to deal with Trump on an ongoing basis, and ingratiating herself with him was part of the job. All too often, this means smiling and nodding even when the subject says something upsetting. (Perhaps that explains part of Billy Bush’s behavior at Access Hollywood.)

That’s exactly what I did when I was sent to interview Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, the city’s powerful former police commissioner. When we were introduced, Rizzo’s first words to me were: “So what everyone says about you is true—you’ve got really big tits.” He’s dead now, but he would have gotten along famously with Donald Trump.

I learned fast that when men like that find a woman attractive, they’re less likely to take her work seriously. In my first year as a newspaper reporter, I won major writing and reporting awards—but when a journalist wrote about me as an up-and-coming talent, I was described as a “blond bombshell” and the story implied that my success was due to my looks.

In those days, there was no recourse even if women complained; the term sexual harassment hadn’t been invented yet. “It was just life,” as Gloria Steinem has observed. Men in white-collar offices routinely did things that would be considered criminal today, and women had to handle them if they wanted to keep their jobs. We didn't need Donald Trump Jr. to tell us to toughen up and deal.

And so we stayed quiet, burying the shameful secrets that were foisted upon us by any number of men who thought that having a penis entitled them to do whatever they wanted with our bodies, our careers, our psyches, and our professional reputations, not to mention our ability to pay the rent.

In recent years, I’ve taken comfort in the thought that younger women no longer face such hurdles. Major corporations have HR departments and sexual harassment guidelines and diversity training; things have changed, right? But when I started asking women in their 20s and 30s about their experiences, I discovered I was wrong.

“It hasn’t gotten better,” says Amanda Steinberg, the CEO of DailyWorth.com, a financial information company aimed at women. “Most men are not like this, but there are so many who are that it’s predictable. It’s so common I’ve gotten used to handling it. I find it a skill to be able to manage it.”

Class, race and socio-economic status also influence a woman’s risk of being victimized. A month-long stint on grand jury duty showed me the astonishing prevalence of sexual harassment cases involving African-American and Hispanic women who were young, poor, and working in minimum-wage jobs for men who knew they depended on their paychecks for survival. Such women felt they had little recourse, and their bosses often took advantage of their vulnerability.

Men who don’t commit such acts seem genuinely baffled by how common they are; obviously Not All Men are guilty, but so many are that such behavior shapes the experience of most women. And men often retaliate when women don’t cooperate.

As an experienced internet entrepreneur, Steinberg is well aware that her professional survival can depend on men trying to get her into bed. “These are people who control the fate of my career,” she says. “I hear from really successful women that many of their superiors and venture funders try to sleep with them—and even put deals on the line. I have a friend who lost a major round of funding as a result of not having sex with someone.”

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When women say no, the men they reject can also tarnish their reputations. “They then discredit me as a result,” Steinberg reports. Trump denounced his accusers as “horrible, horrible liars” and threatened them with financial ruin; few journalists have the money to take on a litigious billionaire in a protracted legal battle.

And so many women remain silent—but silence takes its toll. “I cut myself,” says a woman who self-mutilates as a result of her harassment. “It’s so painful to realize how much we have to face.”
“I self-medicate a lot,” confesses a woman who drinks too much and uses drugs.
“The thing I’m struggling with the most is nicotine addiction,” a chainsmoker admits.
As time passes, we may think we’ve put such problems behind us. But like the Trump campaign, a present-day event can trigger an avalanche of painful memories. For me, the memories were about a guy in high school who told everyone I'd slept with him. I hadn't, but the experience didn't do much for my ability to trust men. Many women endure far worse offenses when it comes to sex, but one way or another we all cope.

Donald Trump dismissed his own words on that Access Hollywood tape as “locker room talk” that had nothing to do with reality. His defenders were equally cavalier. “Men brag,” Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show, as if their very gender gives them blanket permission to lie about their sexual experiences with women. What such men apparently don’t consider is the other human being at the receiving end of this dynamic—a person who may be permanently harmed by the consequences. Men may regard locker room talk as a sport to which they are entitled by virtue of their genital equipment, but their lies can hurt a woman in such profound ways that the wounds never heal. Even when we keep our silence, our lives are changed forever by their perfidy.

As the nation confronts the prospect of a female president, many women are dealing with an angry backlash from men who react to such historic female empowerment by asserting their own power in ever more egregious ways. “It’s getting worse,” says Steinberg. “Our collective ambition is manifesting now, and it’s actually inflaming this aspect of things. I feel like I’m a warrior on the front line, and it’s exhausting.”
But she’s not just defending her rights as a business owner. “I’m fighting for my right to exist as a full version of myself, as opposed to a fake meek version of myself,” she says.

As each day’s headlines draw more women out of the shadows where they’ve hidden their sorrow, men may soon find they’ve created a nation of female warriors.

Leslie Bennetts is the author of Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses and Liberation of Joan Rivers, out November 15.